Resident Lecturer in Tropical Ecology, the School for Field Studies, Villa Carmen, Peru.

* Corresponding author: paleonycteris@gmail.com

SHORT COMMUNICATION Manuscript history: Submitted in 24/Jun/2015 Accepted in 30/Dec/2015 Available on line in 31/Dec/2015 Section editor: Monik Oprea

Abstract.This note reports Peter’s ghost faced bat Mormoops megalophylla from the island of Barbuda, northern Lesser Antilles. Our record is based on fossil remains recently discovered in uncatalogued material or misidentified specimenswithin a late Quaternary assemblage collected at Caves 1 and 2, Two-Foot Bay, Barbuda, over 50 years ago and housed at the Vertebrate Paleontology collection at the University of Florida, Florida, USA. This is an extralimital record for M. megalophylla, which extends its past distribution well into the northern Lesser Antilles, increasing the bat diversity and number of extinct species known from this island during the Quaternary.

megalophylla (Peters, 1864) is endemic to the New World, where it is widespread from southeastern US throughout Mexico and part of Central America. It seems absent in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama (Smith, 1972; Rezsutek and Cameron, 1993). In South America, it is present in Ecuador, northwest Peru, northern Colombia,

provide wide extralimital records for this species in the Caribbean during the Quaternary. These include occurrences in the islands of Cuba, Bahamas, Hispaniola, and Jamaica in the Greater Antilles, where M. megalophylla is now extirpated (Silva, 1974; Morgan, 2001; Morgan and Czaplewski, 2012). Fossils of Mormoops megalophylla are also reported from Curaçao, Aruba, Margarita and Tobago in the Lesser Antilles, Florida (USA), and northeastern Brazil (Rezsutek and Cameron, 1993; Czaplewski and Cartelle, 1998; Morgan, 2001; Dávalos, 2006; Morgan and Czaplewski, 2012). Such former, wider distribution of this and other species seems to have lasted until the late Holocene in Cuba (Orihuela, 2010; Orihuela and Tejedor, 2012).

This note reports fossil specimens of

Mormoops megalophylla from the island of Barbuda, in the Lesser Antilles. This note is relevant because it expands the extralimital distribution of Mormoops megalophylla in the

Caribbean, and increases the tally of locally extinct bat fauna in the Lesser Antilles. Moreover, it provides a new fossil bat record for the island of Barbuda that may suggest sympatry between Mormoops blainvillei Leach 1821 and M. megalophylla, and a higher bat diversity in this island during the late Quaternary.

The specimens were discovered accidentally in

the vertebrate paleontology collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida (UF-FLMNH) (USA) while researching Antillean fossil bats in 2004 (Fig. 1 and 2). We included four of these specimens in our study of a pre-Columbian M. megalophylla dentary from Cuba, but did not provide a formal report and description of the specimens or further contextualization of their presence in the UF-FLMNH collection (Orihuela and Tejedor, 2012: Fig. 2 D, E, and F). In addition to these specimens, one possible M. megalophylla specimen is included here, but without number sharing a vial with a fossil M. blainvillei (UF3376) from Little Bay Cave I in the island of Anguilla and collected by W. Auffenberg and F. Wayne King on July 1958. Because the catalog indicates that only one specimen should be in the vial, the origin of the unnumbered specimen is unknown. Thus, we consider this specimen as a possible record but do not include it further here until more information is available (unpubl. data). Lineal measurements were taken with a digital caliper and are reported in millimeters (mm).

Bay, Cave II-I, Barbuda” in pencil, and included three fossil Mormoops megalophylla dentaries (UF2811, 3380, and 3381) along with a right dentary of Mormoops blainvillei. This specimen of M. blainvillei is within the same vial of M. megalophylla UF3381, and is marked 3371 in pencil. Both specimens are dark-chestnut brown color. The online catalog indicates that Walter Auffenberg and F. Wayne King collected the specimens from Cave II Two Foot Bay (lat. 17.668565 N, -61.769578 W), in northern Barbuda on July 1958. A study of other specimens in the same collection, but collected in other localities in Barbuda, also revealed the presence of uncatalogued

M.

megalophylla.

These

assemblages are assumed to date to the late Pleistocene and Holocene (Pregill, et al., 1994).

These first three specimens were distinguished

from M. blainvillei based on size, of which Mormoops megalophylla is significantly larger (see Table 1; Fig. 1-2). Few discrete characters served to help identify between these taxa. The angular process of M. megalophylla is in line with the dentary ramus, whereas that of M. blainvilleicurves laterally, away from the line of the dentary ramus (Silva, 1983). The angle between the horizontal axis of the dentary and the coronoid-condyle crest is more inclined towards the tooth row in Mormoops blainvillei than in M.

megalophylla. The width of the p4 has also been used for identification, where M. blainvillei generally has a broader posterior half than anterior half of the tooth. However, all these characters, except for size, vary among the species (Ray et al., 1963), and were not used by Simmons and Conway (2001). The M. megalophyllafossils from Barbuda fall within the size range of M. m. intermedia (Miller, 1900) an insular subspecies of the Netherland Antilles, and are smaller than the continental M. m. megalophylla and M. m. tumidiceps Miller 1902 (Table 1).

It seems probable that these fossils were

erroneously lumped together as Mormoops blainvillei, for they are identified as such in the UF-FLMNH online catalog and individual vials. The Antigua and Barbuda collection include other mormoopid fossils from Cave I under M. blainvillei that are M. megalophylla (e.g., partial mandibles UF4243-4258 from Cave I collected by Walter Auffenberg in March 1962), in

addition to uncatalogued M. megalophylla. The online catalog and individual vials of numbered specimens reflect the misidentification of the M. megalophylla for M. blainvillei.

Two-Foot Bay noncultural cave deposits in

Barbuda have provided some of the richest fossil faunas of the Lesser Antilles (Pregill et al., 1994). Despite such overall richness of the vertebrate fossil record of both Antigua and Barbuda, only one fossil bat, Mormoops blainvillei, was reported from Barbuda (Pregill et al., 1994: 43; Morgan, 2001). Several researchers mentioned mormoopid fossils from Quaternary cave deposits in these islands (Steadman et al., 1984; Pregill et al. 1988, 1994; Morgan, 2001: 383; Genoways et al., 2007; Pedersen et al., 2007; and Morgan and Czaplewski, 2012: 130), but these pertain to M. blainvillei (Pregill et al., 1994:43). Mormoops megalophylla was unreported from either island until now. These findings are not unexpected given that part of these collections remain uncatalogued and unstudied (Pregill et al., 1994: 16; Morgan, 2001: 383).

This finding increases the known fossil bat

fauna from Barbuda, indicating a richer bat paleofauna in the island during the Quaternary that still require further attention and study, especially a working chronology that can contextualize bat extirpations and extinctions in time. So far, five extant bats (Pedersen et al., 2006, 2007), and now one more locally extinct form is reported from Barbuda, a rich fauna considering the small size of the island. Moreover, the occurrence of Mormoops

blainvillei

and

Mormoops

megalophylla on the same deposit, if truly contemporaneous,

provides

and

additional

example of mormoopid richness and sympatry on the same archipelago during the late Quaternary. However, as is usually the case of cave deposits, the multiple sources of cave sedimentation often result in poorly stratified or non-stratified deposits. Discerning the contemporaneity of individual specimens within these deposits, especially if stratigraphically undated, is problematic. Semken et al. (2010) revealed that individual specimens found associated within a given deposit are unlikely to be contemporaneous

with each another in case studies from North American caves. Thus, taxa within such deposits should then be assumed as non-contemporaneous, unless absolute dating can indicate otherwise (Czaplewski persn. comm., April 2015).

Findings like these indicate that much is yet to

be discovered and learned from fossil micro fauna deposited in the multiple caves of the Caribbean islands. No doubt, further discovery, analysis and dating of fossil deposits in the Lesser Antilles will greatly enhance the overall understanding of bat extinctions and aid designing conservation efforts for bat communities in the West Indies.

Acknowledgments

We thank Richard Hulbert Jr. for access to the

collection and guidance therein. Herman Benitez for financial support. More especially, we thank Nick Czaplewski, Gilberto Silva Taboada, and Tamara Castaño for providing critical discussions or reviews during the early drafts.